Tobacco Firms’ Sports Ties Assailed : Health: Secretary Sullivan targets the Virginia Slims women’s tennis sponsorship. He calls such cigarette promotion ‘blood money.’

Escalating his public assaults on the promotion of cigarettes, Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan demanded Friday that tobacco companies end their sponsorship of athletic events.

“When the tobacco industry sponsors an event in order to push their deadly product, they are trading on the health, the prestige and the image of the athlete to barter a product that will kill the user,” Sullivan said.

“The sponsorship itself uses the vigor and energy of athletes as a subtle but incorrect and dishonest message that smoking can be compatible with good health, which it is not,” he said, denouncing the corporate funds used in such sponsorships as “blood money.”

Sullivan’s comments, made at a press conference held by a coalition opposed to the sponsorship of this week’s Virginia Slims women’s tennis tournament in Washington, were the latest in a recent string of public criticisms he has leveled at the tobacco industry.

While Sullivan has no legal authority to force tobacco companies to change their marketing practices, his stature as the government’s leading health official is expected to stir increasing public debate over the issue.

Last month, in a strongly worded indictment of marketing plans that target minorities and the poor, Sullivan called on thJ. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to halt plans to test market Uptown, a new cigarette developed for black smokers. Several days later, Reynolds announced it had canceled its campaign.

Earlier this week, Sullivan again castigated Reynolds over reports that it was planning to develop another new cigarette, Dakota, aimed primarily at blue-collar women. Reynolds has not responded publicly to the criticism.

Sullivan, who previously had maintained a low profile after being criticized for waffling on the abortion issue during his nomination process last year, appears comfortable waging a highly public fight with tobacco companies.

While the outspoken attacks appear to reflect his own strong feelings on the subject, Sullivan is not the first high-ranking public health official to take on the tobacco companies. The once-powerful industry is clearly losing ground as anti-smoking sentiment increases and restrictive measures proliferate across the country.

Thus, Sullivan’s campaign is unlikely to inspire a serious political backlash for him and appears to have the tacit approval of the Bush Administration.

“The White House was notified Sullivan was doing this--going after cigarettes--and, as far as I know, they didn’t say anything about it,” said an HHS source who requested anonymity. “So he’s doing it.”

Sullivan described athletes as “role models for young men and women around the world,” and he said that “through the association of athletics and tobacco, young people may be tempted to smoke.”

He said sponsorship of athletic events by cigarette makers creates a “dangerous mixed message,” adding: “It is also ironic--but telling--that most of the superb athletes competing in organized sports do not use tobacco, and could not use it if they want to be successful and healthy.”

In a thinly veiled reference to Virginia Slims, which sponsors 14 major tennis tournaments across the country, Sullivan said: “During the average period of a championship tennis match, approximately 100 people will die from diseases caused by cigarette smoking.”

Steve Weiss, manager of media services for Philip Morris, the manufacturer of Virginia Slims, immediately defended his company’s marketing efforts.

“We helped start the professional women’s tennis tour 20 years ago, and, throughout the history of the women’s tennis tour, Philip Morris has been its sole sponsor,” Weiss said. “It’s a sponsorship that we’re very proud and happy with, and the players are happy with. But the most important point is that millions of tennis fans across the country and throughout the world get to see the best women’s tennis anywhere--through our sponsorship.

“We don’t ask our players to smoke,” he said, “and we’ve never asked them to endorse smoking. What we do is ask them to go out there and play great tennis--and they do.”

Women’s International Tennis Assn. Executive Director Gerard Smith said the tour will not break off its relationship with Philip Morris. “That’s not going to happen,” Smith said. “We entered into a contract in good faith and with our eyes open. We don’t intend to break it.”

Smith said the tennis association’s board last summer voted unanimously to renew its sponsorship contract with the firm, rejecting a counteroffer from Procter & Gamble Co.

Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute, an industry lobbying group, disputed Sullivan’s suggestion that promotion of athletic events would tempt young people to smoke.

Sullivan “must believe that there are some adults in the population who can’t be trusted to look at a cigarette promotion and make their own decision,” Merryman said. “If he were right, I think you’d see millions of people suddenly mesmerized by ads and promotion with no option but to flee to the nearest vending machine.”

Sullivan is not the first high-ranking public health official to challenge the tobacco industry. Former Surgeon Gen. C. Everett Koop rankled the Ronald Reagan White House by carrying on an unrelenting campaign against tobacco use. And Joseph Califano, secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under former President Jimmy Carter, announced publicly that he had quit a three-pack-a-day habit and frequently railed against the evils of tobacco.

“I’m pleased to see that Dr. Sullivan has decided to be aggressive and forceful on this issue,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“Dr. Koop was very courageous in being the trailblazer, despite the fact that there was undoubtedly heat from the White House for him to stop,” Waxman said. “I’m pleased to see that Dr. Sullivan is willing to carry on that courageous tradition.”

One HHS source said that Sullivan “read the stories about Uptown and became incensed. He started asking his people what we could do about this. Sullivan wanted to get the word out that he thought this was outrageous.